Events
Program in Survey Methodology News
Fall 2008
Michigan Program in Survey Methodology Traineeship Opportunities
The Program in Survey Methodology MS program has available two traineeships for MS applicants submitting applications by January 1, 2009. The traineeships are with the Survey Research Operations (SRO) unit in the Survey Research Center of the University of Michigan's Institute for Social Research. This program is a work and tuition opportunity for full and part-time students. For more information...
Summer 2008
Congratulations
The American Statistical Association (ASA) announced 53 of its members as Fellows of the Association. Two of the members are from the University of Michigan, both being our own Steve Heeringa and Eleanor Singer. Election as a Fellow of the ASA is a great honor, only 1/3 of 1% of the ASA's total members are recipients. Being a Fellow of the association recognizes contributions to the advancements of statistics, including publications, positions held in the organizations in which they are employed, activites within ASA, memberships and attainments in other societies and other professional activities.
Please be sure to congratulate Steve and Eleanor on this honor in recognition of their outstanding professional contribution to and leadership in the field of statistical science.
Program in Survey Methodology Ph.D. candidate Matt Jans has been awarded a Census Bureau Dissertation Fellowship to fund his research on the role of speech and voice in interviewer-respondent interactions, and the relation to item nonresponse. The $50,000 award covers data collection, tuition, and stipend for a full year as he continues to work from Ann Arbor with his dissertation committee chair, Fred Conrad.
Graduates from the Program in Survey Methodology
The Program in Survey Methodology offers hearty congratulations to four Ph.D. students who recently defended their dissertations.
James Wagner defended his dissertation, which was entitled "Adaptive Survey Design to Reduce Nonresponse Bias." James continues his work at Survey Research Operations.
Mandi Yu defended her dissertation, "Disclosure Risk Assessment and Synthetic Data Method for Disclosure Control." She will be working for the United States Food and Drug Administration in Maryland.
Sonja Ziniel defended her dissertation which was entitled, "Cognitive Aging and Survey Measurement." Sonja has accepted a position at Harvard Medical School in Boston.
Emilia Peytcheva defended her dissertation, "Language of Administration as a Source of Measurement Error: Implications for Surveys of Immigrants and Cross-Cultural Survey Research." She will be working at RTI International in North Carolina.
From left: Wagner, Ziniel, Peytcheva, and Yu
Presentations
Mike Elliott was an invited discussant at the Mid-Atlantic Causal Conference at Johns Hopkins University's School of Public Health on May 19.
Program News
Richard Valliant co-authored an article with Jill Dever and Ann Rafferty, which was recently published in Survey Research Methods [Dever, J., Rafferty, A., and Valliant, R. (2008), "Internet Surveys: Can Statistical Adjustments Eliminate Coverage Bias?" Survey Research Methods, 2, 47-60].
Mike Elliott has been elected to serve as Program Chair for the American Statistical Associations Section on Survey Research Methods, a role he will fill starting January 1, 2009.
SRC Summer Institute
The SRC Summer Institute in Survey Research Techniques successfully completed its sixty-first year, having welcomed 200 students from 26 countries, representing five continents. Leslie Kish Fellowships provided funding for six participants, and two participants received Frank Andrews Fellowships. Fourteen students took part in the Sampling Program for Survey Statisticians.
This year, the Summer Institute offered 23 courses, including five shared with the University of Maryland at College Park via video-conferencing, along with two workshops. Two courses new to the Summer Institute were offered this year: Fred Conrad taught "Envisioning the Survey Interview of the Future," and Duane Alwin addressed "Measurement Errors in Surveys."
As usual, the participants labored under their academic responsibilities, but almost everyone found time to enjoy a change of pace by meandering through the art fairs, taking a weekend trip, by simply to enjoying the varied opportunities for fun found in summertime Ann Arbor.
Awards
Robert Groves and Mick Couper received the 2008 AAPOR Book Award. Their book Non-response in Household Interview Surveys is being honored for a lasting influence on the science of survey research.
Mick Couper is the recipient of the AAPOR 2008 Warren J. Mitofsky Innovators Award for demonstrating and advocating the use of paradata by survey researchers as a tool for understanding the behavior of survey respondents.
Spring 2008
Nine students, including the second to earn a Ph.D. from the program, graduated from the Michigan Program in Survey Methodology on Friday, April 25. Graduates and their families and friends attended a breakfast and presentation held at ISR. Kristen Olson, far right, received the Ph.D. degree. Other Class of '08 graduates are, left to right, Marie Komanecky, Amy Lin, Julie Pacer, Erica Zawacki, Qi Dong, and Rachel Orlowski. Grads not pictured: Marie Clay and John La France.